July 7, 2017
The music rang truly like a toothache in the empty piano room; the dust lifting with every note. And her footsteps almost cutting into the oak floors. Almost a lifetime ago…the dead and dried lilies heavy-headed no longer looking up at the ceiling and praying for the sun. Out through the window, the wind through the straw roofs and the waves crashing against the stones, I wanted to drown in that endless blue ocean. My home was here, I thought, and cannot stay.
Come, let us both forget these old tragic tales that serve no purpose but to drag down the able demon, to derail the devil within. You see me still, don’t you, as you stand there naked and wet after the long hot showers that seem to only exacerbate your pain…pains of old age, achings due to lashing out in fatuous rage, fists pounded against many a brick wall, feet tired and torn, and your wretched posture a joke. I have not forgotten.
“I can’t hear you, goddamn it!” He bellowed fiercely white-knuckled gripping at the marble countertop and exhaling through a silver mustache, long and steady.
“Sir, the president is ready to see you now,” came the voice of the maid who leaned in with head turned slightly as she ran her thumb against a cold doorknob.
“I won’t be much longer,” he called out reaching for the towel.
“Hey, Betty, will you see me again tonight? You know, after your shift is over and all?”
“Goddamn you , Leroy, you gonna get me fired. I done told you, boy, I gotta watch this old man and make sure he comfortable and all that.”
“Why you gotta do it? Who is he, anyway?”
“I ain’t sure. He was in the war and got shot a whole bunch of times and ate some of his friends to stay alive in some cave overseas or something. `I get weird chills when I look into his eyes. I ain’t lying neither.”
“Will you quit all that nonsense? Just meet me tonight, girl. I stole us a bottle of that wine ya like. We’ll sneak into one of the rooms we ain’t tried yet.”
“Oh, all right, shit. Damn, boy, I won’t hear the end of it if I just don’t give in with you, god all mighty,” she said jumping in the air as she felt a hard pinch on her left buttock.
Carpeted footsteps faded down the hall coupled with loud whispers and flirting laughter.
“Hang in there. Just shake his hand. Maybe he’ll have you do one more job for him, you know, for old times’ sake. Maybe I can retire and move to Hawaii like I’ve always wanted to. Hell, maybe Maliah’s still there…with those wild brown eyes. There I go again, dreaming. Maybe in another life. Well, I don’t know that I would do it any different, even if I could,” he said into the mirror, reaching for his razor.
∞
